Such Great Heights
by The RyRy
Summary: [SquallxSelphie] Squall needs to get his mind off of Rinoa leaving him, and Selphie offers an outlet with the rebuilding of Trabia Garden. [Completed.]
1. It May Seem Like a Stretch

_A/N: This is a fic for Jez, as she requested as part of the Fanfiction for Charity Drive to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Thank you for your donation, Jez! I hope this is satisfactory!  
_

**Such Great Heights  
**_Part One: It May Seem Like a Stretch_

"So, I thought you just might, you know, like to get away from the Garden, and Trabia really needs the help."

Squall regarded Selphie with a flat stare over the bridge of his nose, which always made Selphie nervous. It was a sign that Squall thought her idea was ridiculous. "You want me to help rebuild a rival Garden?"

Selphie squirmed. "They're not a rival," she said, her voice falling to nearly a whisper. "You know they need help. They're so disorganized, and you're totally organized! If anyone can help them, it'd be you!"

Placing his fingertips to his forehead, Squall took to staring at his desk. The wood grain seemed to become awfully interesting to him at that moment, which only made Selphie feel more uncomfortable. She was only doing this for his well-being, after all.

"Come on," she finally said, putting her hands on the corner of the desk and leaning over a stack of paperwork. "All you do all day is shut yourself up in this office. Yeah, you're Commander of the Garden, but what are you commanding? We aren't _doing _anything—"

"That's enough," Squall replied, turning in his chair to face away from her. "There's too much work to be done here."

"Too much work doing _what_?" Selphie protested. "The paperwork? You don't do any of it anyway!"

Squall leveled a glare at her over his shoulder. "A Commander can't just up and leave his Garden—"

"He can if he's going to another Garden!" Selphie clenched her hands into fists, which nearly made her lose her balance as she continued to lean on the desk. "It's like a gesture of friendship, something people do in times of peace when they want to make allies, you know? And aren't Gardens supposed to work together anyway?"

"Ideally," Squall replied, cutting her off. "But that's not the reality."

"No, the reality is you creating these imaginary conflicts," Selphie paused, nearly losing her nerve to state the next bit. Finally, she swallowed and finished her thought. "Just so you can forget about Rinoa."

"This isn't about Rinoa."

"Oh yeah?" Selphie stood up straight now, folding her arms over her chest. "Then why do you spend every second brooding? Why do you keep running away from it?" She then pointed derisively at a picture frame on Squall's desk. "And why do you still have a picture of her in front of you at all times of the day--?"

"This isn't about Rinoa," Squall repeated.

"Sure. Just like this last Sorceress War wasn't about Rinoa, right?"

Squall didn't answer.

"It's been six months," Selphie continued against her better judgment. "She left you six months ago, Squall. Time to move on."

"She said she went to find herself," Squall corrected her flatly.

"Yes, and do you have any idea what that means?" When Squall stayed silent, Selphie decided to answer her own question. "When a woman says that, it means she's going off to find out if there's a better man out there."

"Not Rinoa, she would never—"

"She would, and that's why she hasn't contacted you." Selphie turned her back on Squall now. "So, instead you create all these delusions to occupy yourself to keep from facing the facts." She felt her nerves rise again – she was telling off her Commander. She was telling off Squall! Was that really wise? "So, here's something to occupy you that isn't a delusion – come with me to Trabia to help them get back on their feet. They need someone to organize them, and you can do it, and you'd actually be doing something for the good of the world instead of bickering with Galbadia over imaginary country borders in the middle of the _ocean_!"

"Fine!" Squall replied, raising his voice in a way that he only rarely did. "If you will _stop talking _about Rinoa!"

"Fine!" Selphie shouted back, raising her voice much higher than she had intended. She crossed her arms and, with a huff, took a step toward the door.

Maybe this hadn't been such a great idea.


	2. The Shrillest Highs and the Lowest Lows

**Such Great Heights  
**_Part Two: The Shrillest Highs and the Lowest Lows_

The Galbadian missiles, time compression, and a recent earthquake had not been good to Trabia Garden. After the world had returned to normal, new concrete had been laid for the Garden's structure to rest on… but the earthquake of a week prior that had killed ten SeeD recruits had also destroyed the new groundwork.

Selphie nearly broke down into tears when she saw the broken pieces of concrete littering the area of Trabia Garden. Most of the walls and ceilings had collapsed, though thankfully not the dormitory areas so that the people working there had someplace warm and sheltered to stay as they rebuilt the once-great Garden.

"Thank goodness you guys are here," Sadie, the highest-ranking SeeD on the premises had said once she glimpsed Squall and Selphie's arrival. "We could use all the hands we can get." Then, looking Selphie up and down, she had grimaced. "I hope you brought some warmer clothes, young lady."

And that was how Selphie had wound up in thick worker's jeans that were four sizes too big for her, held onto her waist by one of Squall's extra belts. She had borrowed a sweatshirt from one of the cadets and felt utterly ridiculous as she walked the length of the main floor with Squall in the blowing snow.

"First, a new foundation needs to be laid," Squall said, climbing over a pillar that had fallen in his path. "Then, the floor put down and the supports for the walls and ceilings. It can't be fancy, just functional."

"They'll get to the fancy later," Selphie said, shivering a little. "We just need to get a roof on this place." She stopped, standing in the place where a large glass fountain had once stood reflecting the light from the faceted glass ceilings… when the ceilings weren't covered with a foot of snow. Now, there were just pieces of glass scattered all around her, and a small frozen pool a few feet away. "I saw the supply airship come in with the cement trucks. I guess they're going to pour a foundation as soon as we can get it dug." She looked half-heartedly toward a group of SeeDs who were working with pickaxes and shovels to clear away some of the debris blocking the path of a large, yellow bulldozer.

"This needs to happen more quickly," Squall responded, and then took off at his usual fast walk toward the heavy machinery at the far end of what would one day be the main hall.

With Selphie watching in utter disbelief, Squall climbed into the bulldozer and started it. He shouted to the SeeDs to get out of the way, he threw the vehicle into gear and promptly started to forcibly clear the debris, pushing it all into a big pile beyond the markers that indicated where the end of the foundation would be.

Selphie clapped her hands. This was the most amusing thing she had ever seen – including Zell trying to fish a fallen hot dog out of the ocean in Balamb – and she had to wonder if there was a class at Balamb Garden that dealt with operating heavy machinery.

If there was, she wanted to take it.

Finally, Squall jumped out of the yellow vehicle of destruction and said something that Selphie couldn't hear, sending the previously-idle SeeDs scattering. Wiping his hands on his pants, Squall crossed the broken concrete to where Selphie was still standing amidst the glass shards of the fountain. "There," he said once he arrived, "that got them into gear."

"I never knew you could operate heavy machinery," Selphie said, grinning a little.

Squall gave her a sideways glance. "There's a class on it."

Selphie squealed with delight.


	3. I Think That It's a Sign

**Such Great Heights  
**_Part Three: I Think That It's a Sign_

Really, Selphie knew that she should never try to wield a sledgehammer, but the opportunity had just been too tempting. A standing wall had needed smashed so that a new wall could be built around it, and she had been the one nearest to the needed tool – or was it a weapon? Regardless, Selphie had grabbed it and given it a mighty swing – one that made the boys watching her laugh, but it had been a lot of fun – and promptly fell on her butt and cracked her head on the newly laid concrete floor.

She had suffered the fifth concussion of her life – many doctors agreed that it wasn't healthy, but she still operated just fine! – and had a nasty cut on her left temple. A white bandage circled her head, and they'd had to cut off some of her hair and even shave it back a little above her ear to get the wound stitched up properly. She sighed, leaning back on the elevated bed that she had been ordered to not leave for three days. How could she be of any help to Trabia like this?

Squall came into visit, dressed in a long white scarf and a dark blue winter hat to protect him from the fierce winds and driving snow outside. He brushed some snow off of his shoulders and removed the protective, tinted goggles that he had taken to wearing in order to see best in the biting breezes and glaring sun. "Are you feeling okay?" he asked, unwrapping the scarf from his neck and face.

Selphie sighed, taking her eyes off of the television that had been placed in this room to keep her entertained. "I'd rather be outside," she confessed.

"Concussions are serious injuries," Squall replied, pulling up a folding wooden chair and sitting on it. "But it looks like they patched you up pretty well."

"They had to cut my hair," Selphie whined, and then hated herself for it. "It's even shaved off!"

Squall sat up higher and looked at the bandage around her forehead with what Selphie thought was mild amusement. "You're lucky they didn't cut it all off."

Selphie let out an exasperated sigh. "So how's it going out there?"

"Good."

Selphie waited for him to continue, and then remembered that this was Squall she was talking to. Yes, this was the guy who said more one-word sentences than the rest of the world combined. "What have they gotten done today?" she asked, to try to start some sort of conversation. She hated it when the room went silent.

"The walls are almost completely in," Squall answered after a momentary pause. "The framing is done, the insulation and drywall also, on the main hall. The supports for the roof are up, and we'll be working on that while you're in here."

"Wow," Selphie replied, genuinely impressed. "You guys are working fast."

"This all could have been done ages ago, if everybody hadn't been so lazy."

Selphie shifted her position underneath the blanket she lay under, trying desperately to think of anything to use to fuel the conversation. Fortunately, she didn't have to work very hard – the television provided it for her.

"Here's some video from downtown Timber today," said a newscaster with a nearly monotonous voice. Selphie watched as images of the familiar streets of the town she had visited so often flashed across the screen. "Though recently placed within Galbadia territory, resistance groups are still active." A different video came on screen of a bunch of people standing in a crowd, holding signs outside of the President's mansion in Deling City. The signs said various things such as _Free Timber_ and _No Representation Enslavement_.

Then, a familiar blue duster caught Selphie's eye. "Is that… _Rinoa_?" she asked without even thinking.

"Where?" Squall responded immediately, then fell silent.

"There… on the left, with that…" Selphie stopped as she saw a young man – was it Watts or Zone? She could never keep them straight – put his arms around Rinoa's shoulders. "Oh…" Selphie murmured as she watched the person who looked strikingly like Rinoa lean back into the man's arms and smile.

"Turn it off," Squall ordered.

Selphie, immediately obeying, searched for the remote since she was practically strapped down to the bed by the sheets and blankets on top of her. She thought she had put it on the bed by her thigh, but it wasn't there. She unsuccessfully checked the other side of the bed, then looked under the covers. Had it fallen off the bed? She couldn't find it, and she searched frantically in order to obey Squall's order.

Without a word, Squall stood up and leaned over Selphie's bed and snatched the remote control off of the table beside her, finding the power button and turning the television off without even a moment of hesitation.

He dropped the remote onto the table, still leaned over the bed and Selphie at the same time. His elbows rested between the mattress and the support frame on the side, next to Selphie's hip, and he was completely silent and unmoving.

Selphie couldn't tell how long it was that he remained there, but after what felt like hours, she realized that he might have been doing a Squall version of crying. She couldn't imagine Squall shedding tears, but… she could imagine him remaining in whatever position he ended up in, unmoving, completely closing himself to the world as he took in a complete shock.

Exactly what he was doing right at that moment.

To Selphie, it had been obvious what Rinoa had run off to do. She and Squall were never really suited for each other, and she had known it from that night after Ultimecia's defeat at the celebration in Balamb Garden. They reveled in each other for a while, but after a few months, Rinoa had actually confided to Selphie that she was getting bored with Squall.

Selphie had seen that coming. Rinoa needed to be kept on her toes, she liked action and adventure, even if she wasn't exactly suited to that kind of lifestyle. Squall, on the other hand, preferred for things to stay constant. He didn't like change, and he certainly wasn't wild and exciting enough to give Rinoa the thrilling lifestyle she thought she was getting when she had entered into a relationship with him.

Selphie liked bringing a little excitement to Squall's life every now and then. It was good for him. But this was not the sort of excitement she had envisioned. Visual reminders of the termination of a relationship were generally not the most pleasant of things, but sometimes they had to happen. Though she felt bad for Squall, she was also happy that he had gotten that glimpse of his ex-girlfriend in the arms of another man. It was a reality check.

Sighing, Selphie lifted her arms from their frozen position half-under the blankets in search of the forgotten remote control. Instead, she placed them on Squall's back, her right hand resting between his shoulder blades and her left hand near his waistline.

He was shaking slightly; she thought it could have been from the sub-zero temperatures outside, but she had a hunch that it was actually Squall's version of an emotion.


	4. I Tried My Best to Leave

**Such Great Heights**

_Part Four: I Tried My Best to Leave_

"You don't have to stay, you know," Selphie said as she watched Squall mope around the new wooden floor of the main hall of Trabia Garden. He had been acting like this ever since she had accidentally pointed out Rinoa getting it on with Watts on television, and Selphie couldn't help but to feel just a bit guilty about it. "You can just go back to Balamb."

Squall showed no sign that he had even heard what Selphie had said. He turned and paced the length of the floor again with his back to Selphie, stopping at the end to give an unfinished door a critical eye.

"You can't just avoid everything," Selphie murmured in Squall's general direction. "Even me."

"I want to see this finished," Squall finally answered, but Selphie didn't know if he was talking about the door or the entire Garden or something else entirely. "It's been started, now it needs to be finished."

"Do you think we couldn't do it on our own?" Selphie asked.

"I didn't mean it like that," Squall replied, running his hand through his hair in exasperation. Selphie could see his muscles tensing. "I just want to see how it all turns out."

"Or because there's nothing here to remind you of Rinoa?"

"Except you."

Selphie sighed. "Point taken." She clenched her fists, trying to figure out what to do next. "I'm not leaving, though."

"Neither am I."

"Good!" Selphie crossed her arms. "So you'll help them finish the roof."

"I'll what?"

Selphie smiled to herself. "Finish. The. Roof."

A look of abject terror crossed Squall's face – of course, since it was Squall, 'a look of abject terror' consisted of a single twitch of the upper lip. "I thought the roof was finished," he said flatly.

"It is," Selphie replied. "On this part of the Garden. There's still that big hole over the Training Center to fix."

Squall exhaled heavily.

xxxxxxxxxxx

One of the things about the dormitories in Trabia Garden that really gave the Garden its personality was the fireplaces in the common rooms. Recently, the fires had been fueled by pieces of wood salvaged from the ruins of the Garden. Selphie curled up in a cushioned chair, covered with a blanket, after spending a couple of hours outside working on the siding of the Garden in the blowing snow. Selphie wondered vaguely how she had managed to survive this when she was in Trabia all the time… she guessed that she had become soft in her time in the idyllic Balamb.

The door opened and a snow-covered Squall walked in, leaving a trail of quickly-melting slush behind him.

"You look cold," Selphie observed.

Squall scowled at her. "You've been inside—"

"I have not!" Selphie protested, snuggling under the blanket even farther. "I was outside for hours working on the siding!"

"Try being on the roof," Squall muttered.

"Done that too!" Selphie crossed her arms underneath the blanket. "While you were in here moping around, I was up on the roof."

"I was not moping."

"Okay, _brooding_."

Squall scowled again. He was doing that more often these days. He was also pacing more often, and that irritated Selphie more than she could possibly emphasize. And he was starting to do it again.

Selphie had tried glaring at him. She had even tried telling him to stop pacing. Neither worked, and she had to resort to violence last time – throwing a block of wood at him – but that didn't even work. He stopped pacing and even sat still for a couple of minutes, but then started his back-and-forth walking pattern.

This time, she wasn't going to be so easily thwarted.

She reached out her foot to trip him.

He stepped over it.

Frowning, Selphie had to change her tactic. As Squall neared her position, she kicked out her foot again. However, when he stepped over it, she reached out and grabbed his jacket and yanked.

Not expecting this sudden course of action, Squall fell in a sprawling mess of limbs onto Selphie's chair and, therefore, onto Selphie.

She giggled. "Hi there." Squall struggled to get up off of Selphie and out of the chair, but she attacked him with her warm blanket. "No you don't," she insisted, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and holding him down. "You are going to sit, because if you get up, you will start to pace, and I can't stand that!"

"Since when did your opinion matter to me?" Squall asked, rolling his eyes as Selphie continued to try to hold him down.

"Since I convinced you to come here with me."

Squall's silence was all the answer Selphie needed. And after a few moments, he stopped struggling, and they enjoyed the warmth of the fire in relative silence.


	5. When We Kiss They're Perfectly Aligned

**Such Great Heights  
**_Part Five: When We Kiss, They're Perfectly Aligned  
_

There were few things that Squall could have told Selphie that would have made her happier than "Selphie, the fountain is here."

She jumped up off the bed she was half-napping on, instantly running out the door without even bothering to put her shoes on or to acknowledge Squall's presence with anything but a squeal. Her bare feet made slapping noises on the tiled floors as she ran down the dormitory hallway to the main hall, where everything had been complete except for the crucial glass fountain.

The walls were perfect in a pale shade of blue intermixed with veins of silver, the stars shone down through the new thick glass ceiling – not faceted this time, but clear so anyone could see the sky – and in the center of the hall with a walkway leading to it was a tall fountain sculpted from glass that looked like a gigantic glacier had frozen in time in the center of Trabia Garden.

Selphie could not have been more pleased. Though the fountain was all planes and angles, sharp points and jutting spikes, she thought it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. It also meant something incredibly important.

Trabia Garden had been fully rebuilt.

A shiver ran up Selphie's spine as she stared up through the glass ceiling at the three brightest stars in the sky. The belt of the constellation of the Hunter consisted of the most striking points in the sky lined up in a perfectly straight line, and they were visible just above the topmost point of the fountain in the middle of the glass ceiling of the newly rebuilt Garden.

"You like it."

The simple observation could have only come from one person. "Squall," Selphie said, still unable to take her eyes off the fountain and the stars above it. "It's perfect."

She couldn't say anything else. It really was perfect, and everything she had dreamed of. Trabia Garden was back and better than ever, and this fountain was the last piece. It was symbolic of everything that the Garden had been through, and now it would only be a few days until everything was back to normal. Once again, she could return home, to Trabia, without having it be under threat of missiles or Gardens or Time Compression, and have it be wholly intact.

Selphie felt Squall's hand on hers. She could feel their knuckles brushing together.

Though she wasn't entirely certain whether it was by accident or on purpose, Selphie couldn't help but to grin to herself. Squall showing affection toward someone other than his gunblade was an incredible feat, and she felt immensely proud of herself. She pretended to look innocent as she slipped her tiny hand inside of his palm, threading her fingers through his… and waited until he noticed and flinched away.

But he didn't flinch. He didn't even pull away. Selphie immediately thought something was wrong, and turned to look to see who had been impersonating Squall so well.

When she turned, she found him looking at her.

It was most definitely Squall. And Selphie's heart had most definitely just leapt into her throat. She was struck by the fact that they were all alone at night, standing next to a beautiful glass fountain with the stars coming in through the new glass ceiling, in a place that they had practically built with their own hands.

She smiled, but didn't say anything. She didn't think she could even force the words out past her heart thudding in her esophagus.

At heart, Selphie had always been a romantic. That was why she had initially fallen for Irvine, though she quickly learned that he didn't really want anything but to chase her. That was his way, and though it was fun, the fun didn't last. From him, Selphie had learned never to waste a romantic moment.

Even this one, with Squall.

However, even when she leaned in close to him, their chests nearly touching, and stood on her toes, she still couldn't reach high enough to kiss him. She nearly sighed and turned away, especially when she saw the panicked look on his face, but then she received the shock of her life.

Squall leaned down and kissed her, covering the last of the distance between them.

As Selphie's eyes fluttered closed, her heart fluttered back to its proper place in her chest, and somehow everything felt more perfect than before.

_They will see us waving from such great heights,  
_"_Come down now," they'll say.  
__But everything looks perfect from far away,  
_"_Come down now,"… but we'll stay.  
_

**The End**


End file.
